Waves of Knowing: A Seascape Epistemology by Karin Amimoto Ingersoll (review)

KARIN AMIMOTO INGERSOLL'S Waves of Knowing: A Seascape Epistemology provides a unique perspective on the knowledge of Indigenous ocean-based epistemology. Situating herself as Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) and a surfer, Ingersoll draws upon her experiences of being on and in the ocean to discuss "how Kanaka Maoli can be 'modern,' both Indigenous and global, while reaffirming autonomous definitions of ourselves" (25). The book provides a thorough discussion of the impact of colonialism and surf tourism on Hawaiian and Pacific islands and what it means for Kanaka Maoli to move through and (re)learn an oceanic literacy formed and shaped through history, time, and space. Impacts of colonialism and early missionaries on Kanaka Maoli identity, ocean literacy, surfing, and surf tourism also guide the early discussion. Interspersed as support throughout the discussion are stories of the Hawaiian Islands, beaches and historic sites from historical Kanaka Maoli knowledge. For the author, seascape epistemology is about oceanic literacy and the creation or reshaping of the land and its features within the ocean, of ocean life, and of the knowledge of navigating the ocean and understanding its waves, weather patterns, and unpredictable behaviors.

Ingersoll's identity as a Hawaiian who is not fluent in the language and is admittedly impacted by colonization relies on her "language of the ocean to articulate the contemporary Kanaka concepts of seascape epistemology … [and where] an ocean literacy aids this critical act of recovery that continually grows and develops alongside a multisited Kanaka identity" (30). Her connection to an understanding of the ocean allows her to build upon her Kanaka identity in both a historical and a modern context. She re affirms her "identity through relationship to place" (93). And, like identity, the ocean is a place that "always shifts," is "never absolute," and allows for "individual interpretation and adjustment" that is "inherent within the [seascape] epistemology" (93). Ingersoll ontologically connects her bodily perceptions and experiences of being in the ocean as a method of understanding herself as connected to that place: she derives understanding of the ocean through that relationship and, too, her identity as connected with and shaped by the ocean.

As Ingersoll writes, "Oceanic literacy is the ability to read the cloud colors that indicate a passing squall, or the ripples on the water's surface telling of an approaching gust or of a school of fish being chased by a larger predator. An oceanic literacy requires an oceanic sensibility" (81), and "ocean literacy remembers what was written in the coral and on the fins of turtles through an active interaction" (93). Much of this understanding of an oceanic literacy as a surfer is learned while being on or even in the ocean, while navigating and traveling on the ocean, and "the ways in which one interacts kinesthetically with the ocean, the ways in which one physically involves oneself with the sea" (82). Travel as an ideology to map epistemology is described as a source of knowledge in voyage and the spiritual connection or power that is necessary in navigating across the ocean (150) and that engages "body, mind, and ancestors to sail" (151). The surfer's body becomes the point at which the knowledge of the ocean is transferred: it is "the tool for ensuing investigations" in oceanic literacy (109). Kanaka Maoli stories, poetry, visual art, and Hawaiian language are also provided as sources of knowledge and support for this seascape epistemology.

This book provides a source of knowledge of oceanic literacy and seascape epistemology that is not widely written about not only in broadly Indigenous literatures but also in Hawaiian research literatures. Much like the movements of the ocean, Indigenous "seascape epistemology requires multiple and seemingly disparate times in which to exist [and] spaces in which to move" (119). Ingersoll has certainly written a seascape epistemology that "exists within this realm as a way of knowing that honors the embodied processes within written, oral, painted, experiences, and historical literacies expressing diverse knowledges" (125). Although emphasized for practice-based or...